A marked police van will be used outside major events or in crowded areas to live scan the faces of people walking past, in an Australian first.

The faces of people will be matched against a database of people with outstanding arrest warrants and registered child sex offenders, as well as missing persons.

"This is not about mass surveillance," [the police commissioner] said, "This is about specifying those in our community who are wanted by police."

While the trial only includes one marked van, the police commissioner is not ruling out further covert technology being used in the future, including at protests.

(Not sure if this is worldwide or only in some countries)

Updating to iOS 26.4DB2 will put your phone into a parental-restricted mode with adult websites blocked on all browsers, warning prompts every time you try to send or receive an explicit image on a messaging app, and all social media apps blocked on the App Store (in Australia)

The settings to disable this mode are locked off until you verify your age either with a credit card, photo ID, or though information Apple already has (like the age of your account).

I've been an apple user my entire adult life but this might finally be the thing that forces me off the platform. Do any other long term apple users have some tips about migrating? I've heard Ashai Linux is pretty good on mac hardware these days and I've been thinking about GrapheneOS for a while.

Australia's Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind determined in 2024 that Bunnings breached privacy laws by scanning hundreds of thousands of customers' faces without their proper consent.

A review of that decision by the Administrative Review Tribunal of Australia has now found the opposite

The retailer did not break the law by scanning customers' identities, but should improve its privacy policy and notify customers of the use of AI-based facial recognition technology, the ruling said

Petty typical stuff by this point. The privacy-invading company wins, pissweak government makes a few privacy "recommendations" but stops short of enforcing anything

TL;DR

ID scanning is becoming a more common requirement to access bars and clubs in Australia (and worldwide). A company called ScanTek is used in over 1,000 clubs in Aus and provides tools such as biometric-matching someone's face to an ID, detecting fake IDs, flagging people and sharing data with other venues automatically

As well as verifying ages, ScanTek boasts "collect marketing information from IDs and drivers licences, which business owners can use to target specific demographics with promotions" on its website in a pitch to business owners. Though they claim to not share any of this with third parties

Australia's privacy laws are vague, don't specify what can be collected and how it must be stored, and only say that companies shouldn't keep data for longer than is "reasonable"

This is something I've been thinking about for a while. I've decided to get a Pixel with GrapheneOS as my next phone and I'm trying to decide the pros and cons of putting a SIM card in it. Convenience vs privacy, public wifi with a VPN vs using phone data, etc.

I can't get a SIM card where I live without ID and I'm looking to reduce being tracked as much as possible. Does anyone else do the same thing?

With the UK apparently floating ideas of a VPN ban it's got me worried about the future of anonymity online. Now people have already pointed out that a VPN ban doesn't make sense because of all the legitimate uses of one and wouldn't even be enforceable anyway, but that got me thinking.

What if governments ordered websites (such as social media sites) to block traffic originating from a VPN node? Lots of sites already do this (or restrict your activity if they detect a VPN) to mitigate spam etc. and technically that wouldn't interfere with "legitimate" (in the eyes of the gov) VPN usage like logging onto corporate networks remotely

It's already a pain with so many sites either blocking you from access or making you jump through a million captchas using VPNs now. I'm worried it's about to get a whole lot worse

Just curious what laws people would like to see passed where they live related to privacy. Can be an existing law in another country you'd like to see in your own, something new entirely, or repealing an existing privacy-invading law

I've been thinking about which is the better way to shop to maintain privacy. The way I see it there are pros and cons to each but I can't decide which is ultimately better (and of course it depends on threat model and who you’re trying to hide from)

Irl

Pro

• Retailer doesn’t need your address/phone number/email address to complete a transaction
• If you pay with cash, your bank doesn’t have details of what you bought and can’t sell it to data brokers

Con

• Most/all stores have security cameras (often with facial recognition). You can mitigate it with masks or other coverings but I’ve seen a few stores now locally that don’t allow masks or raised hoodies

Online

Pro

• Your shopping is kept from prying eyes as far as security cameras go

Con

• If you buy something to be delivered, the retailer usually wants your address, email and phone number, and (unless using a gift card) your credit card info
• Even if you buy something to collect in store, most still require a phone number which can be hard to make private if burner phones aren’t legal where you live and/or the retailer won’t accept VoIP numbers

Whenever people ask about ways to make their smartphones more private or which is the most privacy-respecting phone to get, there's always a few people confidently asserting "all smartphones are spy tools, get a dumbphone with no apps if you want to be private". Which is ridiculous advice for a few reasons

• Dumbphones usually run either proprietary operating systems or outdated forks of Android. They're almost never encrypted. They rarely get security updates. They're a lot more vulnerable than even a regular Android phone

• With dumbphones, you're usually limited to regular phone calls or SMS/MMS messaging. These are ancient communication standards with zero built-in privacy. Your ISP can read any text message you send and view metadata logs of any phone calls you make. In lots of places (like Australia where I live) ISPs are actually required to keep logs of your messages and phone calls

With even a regular Android phone you at least have access to encrypted messaging apps like Signal or Session so your conversations aren't fair game for anyone who wants to read them. Of course there are better options. iOS (not perfect but better than most bloatware-filled Android devices) and a pixel with GrapheneOS (probably the best imo) are much better options; but virtually anything out there is going to be better for privacy than a dumbphone

Edit: Thanks everyone for giving your thoughts. Some really good points I hadn't thought much about

Over the two years until July 2022, Kmart captured the facial data of "tens or hundreds of thousands" of customers at store entrances and return counters

[...] after a three-year investigation, privacy commissioner Carly Kind found Kmart's use of FRT was disproportionate, and the company did not gain consent to use it on shoppers

As part of the finding, Kmart has been ordered not to repeat the practice in the future, and will have to publish a statement on its website within 30 days explaining its use of FRT and the regulator's finding against it

TL;DR: As usual for this sort of thing, Kmart faces no real consequences (not even a fine ffs!). Meanwhile the Australian government is pushing forward with its mandatory age verification laws in spite of (or because of..) huge public backlash. I hate this country